The Past is Prologue (to the End)
by DetectiveInspectorSydney
Summary: A prequel to my other story, The End.


**A/N: Write about a heartbreak on a summer day(s) OR an unrequited (doesn't necessarily have to be) love coming true on a winter night(s).**

 **Additional Prompts:**

 **3\. (dialogue) "You can't start a new chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one."**

 **6\. (sound) sobbing**

 **13\. (phrase) walking down the road**

 **This is functioning as a precursor to last week's story, "The End", about how Lily's feeling a year after she dumped Snape as a friend (yay Lily!). I wrote that story literally about an hour after I had broken up with my best friend of ten, and boyfriend of 4, years. Where Lily was in that story, is kind of where I was at that moment, and honestly still am. This stage of Lily's heartbreak is more of the (what I'm calling) "Stop the World I Want to Get Off" feeling, which I am also still feeling.**

Lily had pushed through the end of the semester. It had been hard as fuck, but she had done it. She stared vacantly out the window, would skip class, on average, once a week, she sat as far away from Severus as possible, any time they were in the same room, she never went outside, any free time she had was spent in her bed, she failed to hand in at least three assignments, _but_ she had passed all her classes. She had done it.

Now she was at home for the entire summer; and no one needed anything from her. One of the first things she'd done when she entered her bedroom was box up anything and everything Severus had ever given her, and shoved it into the back of her wardrobe. She couldn't quite bear to throw the box out altogether.

Petunia had waited until their parents had gone to bed, to unleash her pent up savagery.

"I knew it! Didn't I warn you to stay away from him? He's even more of a freak than you are!" Lily closed her eyes. _Just ignore her,_ she heard Severus' voice in her head, _she's only jealous._ Lily laughed derisively inside her own head.

"You know, I'm surprised it took you both this long. It's pathetic really the way he almost seemed to worship the ground you walked on."

"Shut it," Lily half whispered.

"What did you say to me?" Petunia's anger, always seeming to bubble just below the surface, leaked into her voice as color rose in her cheeks.

"I said shut it," Lily repeated, "you don't know anything. So just shut up and get out of my room." Lily rose to her feet, her wand in her hand. Petunia paled. "Don't make me say it again," Lily straightened her wand arm, emphasizing each syllable. Petunia turned and fled. Lily heard the lock click after her sister slammed the door. Lily closed her own door rather gently, before the sobbing came. She tried to muffle her voice with her pillow. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep.

Lily began watching a lot of television. If both her parents didn't work, she probably would have been scolded for it, but they did, so she wasn't.

When she wasn't watching television, Lily watched her wall. She spent hours lying in her bed drifting in and out of consciousness. This went on for about three weeks, and finally, during one of these listless episodes, her mother got home from work, and upon finding her daughter in bed, went to sit with her.

"Lily," Mrs. Evans murmured, stroking her youngest's hair, "you can't start a new chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one." Lily didn't reply. How could she explain to her mother that she was perfectly content to continue reading the last chapter? She was in no way prepared to move on. Regardless of what she'd said to Severus, and how she'd behaved towards him since, she missed him. There was no good was to verbalize how much. The grief just came in waves, and it was much easier to go ahead and drift, rather than swim against the current.

Eventually Lily's mother left her be. Lily mulled over what she'd said, but also continued to stare at the wall.

As the summer drew to a close, Lily began to perk up a little. This was mostly due to the fact that Petunia had re-entered her bedroom sometime at the beginning of August to inform that her parents were seriously considering not letting her go back to that "freak school". This truly scared Lily. Hogwarts was as much home, as this house. Her parents couldn't seriously expect her to give up the Wizarding world and go to school with Tuney? Then and there, she decided. There was no way she was letting Severus take up any more of her life, or her time. He had done a lot of damage, but he wasn't going to be the reason she didn't finish out her final years two years at Hogwarts.

So she'd pulled herself up. She started going to dinner and actually eating her food. She would participate in conversations with her Dad about his work, rather than stare blankly while he tried to get Petunia or her mother to care about Shakespeare.

She managed just fine, dismissing any thought of Severus as quickly as it came. She still couldn't bring herself to leave the house, but she did spend time in the back garden under a tree with her piles of homework. She must have put on a good show, because she never heard a word from her parents about not going back to Hogwarts.

On September 1st, at 10:45 a.m. she was loading her trunk into the appropriate carriage when she saw him for the first time in three months. He looked thinner. His skin was more sallow, his hair greasier, and in general seemed even more angry and disheveled that ever. Lily had not previously thought that possibly. She almost felt sympathy for him, but then she pushed it away. She couldn't afford the sentimentality. She couldn't afford to let him get under her skin.

Being back at school, with her friends, worked wonders on Lily. She was smiling again. She was attending her classes, and finishing all her assignments either on time, or handing them in early. She threw herself into every activity, still trying to fill the void that her best friend had left her with.

It was the second week of third week of September, the very tail end of summer, and in pleasantly surprising turn of events, Lily found herself walking down the road into Hogsmeade. She was alone with her thoughts, but just now that didn't seem to be a problem. This was how she knew she'd be okay. She was still grieving, and it was going to take a lot more time, perhaps more than she was comfortable me, but she would get there. She would start that new chapter.


End file.
